Integrating discrete event simulation and data envelopment analysis for system performance and efficiency evaluation

Healthcare facilities, particularly outpatient clinics, are crucial for local communities' medical needs. To enhance their performance, these facilities need to optimize their operations. Key system performance metrics, such as patient throughput, waiting times and cycle times, can quantitatively be measured using discrete event simulation (DES). DES replicates facility structures and behaviours, offering a valuable platform for assessing the configuration effects of resources on system performance. However, current DES tools cannot identify the best resource configurations for future performance improvement. To address this issue, this paper develops a DES model for an outpatient clinic and improves its performance through data envelopment analysis (DEA). The case study involves a clinic in Northern Malaysia, where relevant data were observed and collected. The analysed data were then input into the DES model. The model measured the clinic's current performance and assessed the impact of its resource configurations. 37 different resource configurations were tested, and their relative efficiencies were evaluated using DEA. The analysis revealed room for improvement in resource allocation.